With the advent of the intra-office digital communication link intended to serve a plurality of computer terminals, for example, the Ethernet cable of the Xerox Corporation, need has arisen for an effective interconnecting device for the transition from cable of type having an insulated center conductor and encircling shield to the user device input terminal, typically a so-called N-series standard connector having a contact pin extending coaxially with a shield and protruding outwardly of insulation mutually spacing the shield and pin.
Were one simply to provide the pin with sharpened end configuration and drive the pin into the cable into piercing relation to the center conductor, the pin would also then engage the shield, providing ineffective connection wherein the cable conductor and shield are shorted together. In light of this situation, one known present approach to the problem looks to a cable preparation step wherein the shield is removed, prior to the piercing step, in the vicinity of the intended connection. The cable piercing can then be made without shorting possibility.
In an alternative approach, the contact pin is supported in a generally conical insulator and protrudes endwise therefrom. A substantial puncture is made through the shield into cable insulation with the pin thereupon engaging the conductor and being electrically insulated from the shield by the conical insulator. Some artisans note that this approach is ineffective, based on the tendency toward separation of the pin-conductor connection, absent bias maintaining their engagement. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,120,554, which employs plural opposed conical insulators, one carrying a contact pin, each insulator extensively puncturing the cable for maintaining biased engagement of the insulator-supported pin and the cable conductor.
Based on its extent of cable puncturing, such alternative approach may fairly be characterized as a solution with cable damaging potential, clearly involving a non-repeat connection. On the other hand, the comparative low cable damaging potential of the first-discussed approach has not seen realization in a non-customized connector product.